Russia successfully launched an Egyptian telecommunications satellite on Thursday, the Russian space agency Roskosmos announced. A Soyuz rocket took off with the Egyptsat-A satellite at 1647 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.The satellite will take high-definition images of the Earth’s surface, Roskosmos said in a statement.“The satellite has been placed in orbit, all is working well,” space agency spokesman Vladimir Ostimenko said, according to the Russian RIA ...

Ford Motor Co. has launched an investigation into whether it overstated gas mileage and understated emissions from a wide range of vehicles.The company says that in September, a group of employees reported possible problems with a mathematical model used to calculate pollution and mileage, prompting the company to hire an outside firm to run tests.Testing will start with the 2019 Ford Ranger small pickup truck, and if problems are found, the company will start looking at models dating to ...

Microsoft Corp on Wednesday said it had discovered hacking targeting democratic institutions, think tanks and non-profit organizations in Europe and plans to offer a cyber security service to several countries to close security gaps. The hacks occurred between September and December 2018, targeting employees of the German Council on Foreign Relations and European offices of The Aspen Institute and The German Marshall Fund, the company said in a blog post. Microsoft said it found out about the ...

The founder of Chinese telecom giant Huawei has hit back at US efforts to blacklist the company, saying defiantly that the world cannot do without Huawei and its “more advanced” technology.“There’s no way the US can crush us,” Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with the BBC.“The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced.”Ren, 74, also denounced as “politically motivated” the December arrest of his daughter, Huawei Chief Financial ...

Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders urged Germany to press ahead with plans to create common European regulations on arms exports, adding that without such regulations Airbus could consider manufacturing German-free products. By showing “a kind of moral super elevation” on arms exports, Germany was frustrating Britain, France and Spain, Enders told Reuters. German restrictions on arms exports to non-EU or NATO countries have been a thorn in bilateral ...

More than a year of work to bring Amazon.com Inc’s headquarters and tens of thousands of jobs to New York City ended on Thursday with a couple of phone calls. Jay Carney, the company’s top policy executive, told New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the world’s biggest online retailer would not go ahead with plans to invest $2.5 billion to build a second head office in the New York City borough of Queens. Carney, a former press secretary for President Barack Obama, told New ...

The telecoms industry has called on European governments to join mobile operators in establishing a testing regime to protect network security without having to resort to the disruptive step of excluding vendors from the market. The initiative by the GSMA, which represents 800 operators worldwide, comes as the United States steps up pressure on its allies to ban China’s Huawei on national security grounds. Operators warn that such a step would disrupt the supply of equipment, increase ...

Software pirates have hijacked technology designed by Apple Inc to distribute hacked versions of Spotify, Angry Birds, Pokemon Go, Minecraft and other popular apps on iPhones, Reuters has found. Illicit software distributors such as TutuApp, Panda Helper, AppValley and TweakBox have found ways to use digital certificates to get access to a program Apple introduced to let corporations distribute business apps to their employees without going through Apple’s tightly controlled ...

Forty countries led by Japan and the European Union - but not the US or China - have agreed to require new cars and light commercial vehicles to be equipped with automated braking systems starting next year, a UN agency said. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, a key UN standards agency, said the draft agreement was reached February 1. It was only announced on Tuesday after the finishing touches were put on the deal, spokesman Jean Rodriguez said. The regulation will require all ...

US President Donald Trump will sign on Monday an executive order asking federal government agencies to dedicate more resources and investment into research, promotion and training on artificial intelligence (AI), a senior administration official said.Under the American AI Initiative, the administration will direct agencies to prioritize AI investments in research and development, increase access to federal data and models for that research and prepare workers to adapt to the era of AI.There was ...